Teachers today are handed the challenging task of educating our country's youth in this ever changing world. They must be able to present material while holding the students' interest and keeping them engaged in the subject matter. This can sometimes be difficult to perform depending on the topic being presented. Some students will automatically be interested in the subject you are teaching while others will require a great deal of motivation. I believe the key to holding the interest of your students is to design lessons that activly engage students in learning by relating the material to their lives whenever possible. As material is being presented, students should be made aware that they are expected to ask and answer questions about the current lesson and material from previous lessons. I also believe that one of the keys to learning any subject is to ask questions no matter how foolish they seem, in other words there is no such thing as a "stupid" question. Students must be made to feel comfortable asking and answering questions despite any fear of giving a wrong answer. The simplest piece of information that may have been missed during instruction can make a huge difference in a person's understanding of a subject. For example: In Chemistry if I do not know how to balance a stochiometric equation (a basic introductory Chemistry skill) it would be impossible for me to understand how to calculate the rate law of a reaction.
Delivery methods must also vary because not all students learn the same way. Some students respond well to lecturing, while others require a more visual or hands-on approach. Each method of instruction (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) must be encorporated into lessons in order to give all students an equal opportunity to learn in the way that they feel most comfortable. Despite the fact that it may not be possible to encorprate each learning style into each one of your lessons, the unit or chapter that you are teaching should be made up of a variety of lessons that do include all three.
One of my main goals as a future educator is to share my enthusiasm for science. My wish for my students is that they look at the world a bit differently after studying a science (in my case Chemistry). I intend to do this by making applications to real-life experiences and current events. For example: The subject is combustion reactions. Show the students what a combustion reaction looks like, then tell them that combustion reactions occur in automobiles. Explain that the exhaust (CO and various other gasses) expelled from the automobile is a product of the reaction that occurs within the engine. Now tie this idea into the current event of global warming and the greenhouse gas effect by asking them questions about what automobile exhaust can do to our atmosphere. Another example would be relating heat/energy transfer (q=m*C*change in T) to the burning of biodiesel fuel and its fuel efficiency.
Students should be held accountable for their learning just as much as teachers should be held accountable for their methods of instruction and presentation. A teacher's responsibility is to push students to perform outside of their zone of proximal development and to provide them enough scaffolding to do so. I believe that students should be told why what they are learning is important and how the knowledge that they are investing their time accumulating can be applied to their lives. I strongly feel that in the educational system teachers should act as guides for students by pointing out places where content knowledge can be applied to the world around us, because without practical application knowledge is meaningless.
Delivery methods must also vary because not all students learn the same way. Some students respond well to lecturing, while others require a more visual or hands-on approach. Each method of instruction (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) must be encorporated into lessons in order to give all students an equal opportunity to learn in the way that they feel most comfortable. Despite the fact that it may not be possible to encorprate each learning style into each one of your lessons, the unit or chapter that you are teaching should be made up of a variety of lessons that do include all three.
One of my main goals as a future educator is to share my enthusiasm for science. My wish for my students is that they look at the world a bit differently after studying a science (in my case Chemistry). I intend to do this by making applications to real-life experiences and current events. For example: The subject is combustion reactions. Show the students what a combustion reaction looks like, then tell them that combustion reactions occur in automobiles. Explain that the exhaust (CO and various other gasses) expelled from the automobile is a product of the reaction that occurs within the engine. Now tie this idea into the current event of global warming and the greenhouse gas effect by asking them questions about what automobile exhaust can do to our atmosphere. Another example would be relating heat/energy transfer (q=m*C*change in T) to the burning of biodiesel fuel and its fuel efficiency.
Students should be held accountable for their learning just as much as teachers should be held accountable for their methods of instruction and presentation. A teacher's responsibility is to push students to perform outside of their zone of proximal development and to provide them enough scaffolding to do so. I believe that students should be told why what they are learning is important and how the knowledge that they are investing their time accumulating can be applied to their lives. I strongly feel that in the educational system teachers should act as guides for students by pointing out places where content knowledge can be applied to the world around us, because without practical application knowledge is meaningless.